Harlingen South goes down swinging in regional semis vs. Smithson Valley

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By Bryan Ramos

CORPUS CHRISTI — After dropping Game 1 of their Region IV-5A DI semifinal playoff series against state-ranked Smithson Valley on Friday, the Harlingen South Hawks knew they’d have to fight to tie the series and empty the tank for a shot at winning it.

South, last year’s Class 5A state runner-up, battled back for a 6-4 victory over Smithson Valley in Game 2 on Saturday to tie the series. But the Hawks finally ran out of gas in Game 3, falling 4-0 to bring their 2025 campaign to an end.

“We came out with the mindset of knowing it’s a marathon today, it wasn’t just a sprint,” South head coach Jose Rios said. “We weren’t trying to just get to the finish line, but we wanted to make sure that we had enough endurance to get through it.  The weather played a factor and they’re a great team, but at the end of the day, we fought and we fought to the end.”

South fought through adversity in the form of injuries and exhaustion against a Smithson Valley team that had just one loss on its record prior to Saturday.

The Rangers were riding a 20-game winning streak entering the series before the Hawks handed them their second defeat of the year with the 6-4 win in Game 2.

South scored six runs off seven hits, four walks, and took advantage of six Smithson Valley errors to pull off the Game 2 victory.

Angela Perez went 1-for-2 with two RBI and one run scored. Kara Jensen had one hit and scored three runs, while Amira Rodriguez and Leila Lamb drove in one run each with RBI-singles in the bottom of the fifth.

In Game 3, the Hawks struggled against Smithson Valley starting pitcher Arianna Capek. She also started Game 1 for the Rangers on Friday and finished with 18 strikeouts in a complete-game performance.

She delivered another seven-inning outing Saturday and struck out 11 batters while giving up just three hits and one walk to secure a shutout.

The four Rangers’ runs in their Game 3 win came off two solo home runs and a two-run blast.

South’s Washington signee Rodriguez, who suffered a knee injury seven games into the season, was cleared earlier in the week and made her return in the series against Smithson Valley. She played through the rust to finish her senior season on the field with her teammates.

Pitchers Lexi Sandoval and Kailee Silva gave everything they had in the circle with a combined 416 pitches across the three games against Smithson Valley.

Silva earned the Game 2 win Saturday with 133 pitches and threw 82 more 30 minutes later in the Game 3 loss. Sandoval threw 144 pitches in Game 1 and 57 more in Game 3.

Multiple Hawks also got banged up in Saturday’s doubleheader including Jaylin Mata, who took a hard line drive off her left wrist in Game 2. She fought through the pain and didn’t miss anytime at shortstop despite being clearly affected by the injury.

“I credit them on the amount of fight and heart they had for each other. Not for me, for each other, and that’s a beautiful thing that we get to see and experience,” Rios said. “It’s not easy to go out there knowing Lexi and the situation she’s in, the mindset and where her heart is with her parents. Kailee, she threw almost 200 pitches today and that’s not easy to do. She played big and gave up three home runs and I think those were the only runs that we gave up today against a great hitting team. At the end of the day, seeing them go back and forth and being able to fight, having Amira come back off an injury and getting cleared in the middle of the week and trying to get her going, those are the things you can’t make up, but shows the amount of heart and fight they have for each other.”

The District 32-5A champion Harlingen South Hawks finish their season at 23-8 overall.

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